Chelsea & Manchester City made massive Neymar bids

It has been revealed that both Chelsea and Manchester City made huge offers to try and lure Neymar away from the clutches of Barcelona last summer.

Camp Nou president Sandro Rosell has revealed the battle he had to go through to land the Brazil superstar in the summer, as both Jose Mourinho and Manuel Pellegrini were desperate to land him.

La Liga champions Barcelona eventually won the race to sign Neymar because of the player's desire to make the move happen, as they would have struggled to match Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and Manchester City's Abu Dhabi backers in a straight bidding war.

Eventually the dream combination of Lionel Messi and Neymar was realised, despite the Premier League interest and rivals Real Madrid, as well as Pep Guardiola led Bayern Munich.

"I spoke with his father when we met in Miami and we closed the deal there," Rosell is quoted as saying in the Daily Star.

"The key was that the player wanted to come to Barcelona - everything was based on that despite offers he had from Manchester City, Chelsea, Bayern and Real Madrid."

Neymar did not take long to settle in in Catalonia and has linked well with Messi, but an injury to the Argentine in recent weeks has seen the new boy begin to come into his own.

Meanwhile, Chelsea for a more experienced option in Samuel Eto'o to augment Mourinho's forward line and another promising youngster, though perhaps not as talented as Neymar, in Germany international Andre Schürrle.

Manchester City spent close to £100million on new players, with much of it going on alternative attacking options in the form of Alvaro Negredo and Stevan Jovetic.

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